The Arizona sentinel., 1887-03-05
LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD.
The Early Hardships Which Made the
 "Martyr President" Strong.

The Early Hardships Which Made ths
 "Martyr President" Strong.
 Abraham Lincoln was born in Ken. lucky, but while he was little boy his father, Thomas Lincoln, moved with his family to Indiana. Thomas Lin coin, with the assistance of his wife and children, built temporary shelter of the sort called in the frontier lan- guage ga half-faced camp;" merely shed of poles, which defend the in- mates on three sides from the foul weather, but left them open to its in- clemency in front. For whole year his family lived in this wretched fold, while he was clearing a little patch oi ground for planting corn and building rough cabin for a permanent residence. They moved into the latter before it was half completed, but the rude cabin seemed so spacious and com fortable after the squalOr of ''the camp" that Thomas Lincoln did no further work on it for a long time. He left it for year or two without doors or windows or floor. The battle for existence allowed him no time for su- perfluities like these.
 He raised enough corn to support life; the dense forest around him abounded in every form of feathered game; little way from his cabin an open glade was full of deer-licks, and an hour or two of idle waiting was gen. orally rewarded by shot at fine deer, which would furnish meat for a week.. and material for brooches or shoes. His cabin was like that of other pioneers. A few three-legged stools; bedstead made of poles stuck between the logs in the angle of the cabin, the outside corner supported by a crotched stick driven into the ground; the table, a huge hewed log standing on four legs; a pot, kettle and skillet, and few tin and pewter dishes, were all the furni- ture The boy Abraham climbed at night to his bed of leaves in the loft by ladder of wooden pins driven into the logs.
 '1t was a wild regiOn," writes Mir. Lincoln, in one of those rare bits of autobiography which he left behind him. with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There were some schools, so called, but no quali- fication was required of a teacher beyond Teadin', writin', and cypherin' to the Rule of Three If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighbor- hood, he was looked upon as wizard There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for an education.
 But in the case of this ungainly boy there was no necessity for any external incentive. A thirst of knowledge as a means of rising in the world was in- nate in him. The schools were much alike. They were held in deserted cabins of round logs, as distinguished from the more aristocratic split logs, with earthen floors and small holes for windows, sometimes illuminated by as much light as could penetrate through panes of paper greased with lard The teachers were usually in keeping with their primitive surroundings. His last school days were passed with one Swaney, in 1926, who taught at dis tance of four and half miles from the Lincoln cabin. The nine miles of doubtless seemed to Thomas Lincoln a waste of time, and the lad was put at steady work and saw no more of school. Golden DagS.